Tag Archives: Diller Scofidio + Renfro
On the cusp: Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive
“It’s been a long hard road. Standing here today I feel both relief and excitement,” Lawrence Rinder, Director of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive said, speaking on Tuesday in the shell of a building that will one day be a gleaming new cultural center in the heart of downtown Berkeley.
Building work has begun in earnest on converting the Art Moderne former UC Berkeley printing plant on Center St. into a strikingly contemporary museum designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Plant Construction, who have worked on many museums, including the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, were selected as lead contractors. The parking lot on Addison adjacent to the 1939 building has been largely demolished. Soon, major excavation work will begin, according to David Vogel, project director at EHDD Architecture, who are the appointed executing architects on the project. He spoke at a media preview held in the boarded up building on Tuesday morning this week. … Continue reading »
Art museum chief: New space good for Town & Gown
Yesterday, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive announced it had begun construction work on its new building in downtown Berkeley.
The UC Berkeley-owned museum has raised the lion’s share of the $100 million it needs to create a new home for itself on Center Street at Oxford, on the fringes of the Cal campus.
BAM/PFA is set to move from its current location on Bancroft Way into the new space, designed by New York architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, in early 2016.
Berkeleyside caught up with BAM/PFA Director Lawrence Rinder to find out what the dramatic new building will mean for the museum and for the city of Berkeley. … Continue reading »
Work starts on new Berkeley Art Museum, to open in 2016
Construction work has begun on the new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive which, all things going well, is slated to open in the summer of 2016, bringing bold contemporary architecture into the heart of Berkeley.
The UC Berkeley-owned museum, which includes the Pacific Film Theater, has raised $95 million worth of pledges towards the $100 million goal it needed to create a new home on Center St. at Oxford, the site of a former printing plant owned by the university. The new BAM/PFA is to be designed by New York firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, architects of New York’s High Line and several museums, including the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C.
BAM/PFA has been planning to move since 1997 when it was determined that its current building on Bancroft Way — built in 1970 and designed by Mario Ciampi — did not meet present-day seismic standards. It cannot be upgraded without eliminating open exhibition spaces required for the galleries. … Continue reading »
Berkeley Art Museum’s architect talks
By Preeti Talwai
“Our work started out of a museum wall,” said architect Elizabeth Diller on April 18, beginning the last lecture in the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design’s spring series. Addressing an audience that ran the gamut from students to experienced professionals in the field, she spoke that evening of her multifaceted work, including our very own new Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive.
Leapfrogging across the world with a variety of highly acclaimed projects, ranging from installations to museums, Diller – and her collaborators at their New York based firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro – have now landed in our own backyard with their design for the new Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archives. The evening’s whirlwind survey of their multifaceted projects – which Diller summarized as “we just do a lot of different things” – shed light on and contextualized the project that is planned as a significant part of downtown Berkeley’s revival.
The BAM/PFA project is planned as a significant part of downtown Berkeley’s revival. The 82,000 sq ft space to be nestled between Center, Oxford, and Addison streets, is an example of the rejuvenation and occupation of existing sites that Diller states is “an important sustainable way to think.” Its $100 million design embraces the existing Art-Deco style printing plant, an “industrial shed”, and a new structure. … Continue reading »
The “before” pictures: Berkeley Art Museum/PFA
Call it “beautiful decay”: these stunning photographs, taken by David Stark Wilson, show the interiors of the future home of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA).
Just as with the new Magnes, which unveiled its new space on Sunday, BAM/PFA is to be housed in a 1920s-era 1939 building originally designed as a printing plant for UC Berkeley. It is located at 2120 Oxford Street at Center Street, in the heart of downtown.
Is it not fitting that, as the demand for printed thesis, documents, books and monographs has waned, the engine rooms that produced these volumes are now being put to good use while remaining in the cultural realm?
Berkeley Art Museum mixes old with eye-catching new
Well over 100 people came out Wednesday night to see for the first time what Berkeley’s new art museum will look like — once it sees the light of day, which will probably be in 2015 when the $90 million required to build it has been raised.
Designs for the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive were presented by Charles Renfro, principal at New York City-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro, who were appointed to the project in June last year, as … Continue reading »
Berkeley Art Museum selects architects for new home
The Berkeley Art Museum-Pacific Film Archive has chosen New York architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro to design its new building in downtown Berkeley. The announcement follows a nationwide search which saw ten architecture firms considered for the project.
DS+R is tasked with transforming the former University of California printing plant at Center and Oxford streets in downtown Berkeley for BAM/PFA, after the museum decided to abandon plans to create a building from scratch. In 2006, the … Continue reading »
